“No one will talk to the police. After last week, who can blame them? Have you seen the editor, Obolensky? I thought he was pretty brave when the riot police attacked. Didn’t you think he was brave?”
“Very. Is he going to keep the journal going?”
“Of course.”
“As long as he has writers.”
“Yes. Why this sudden interest in Sergei Obolensky?”
Arkady rushed a bit, like a skater approaching thin ice. “I went to see him.”
“At his office?”
“I know he gave you Tatiana’s final notes for a glorious, going-down-in-flames sort of article. They also may be the notes that got her killed.”
“When were you going to tell me about this visit?”
“When were you going to tell me about the article?”
Arkady thought that the two demands had equal weight but she ignored logic. Instantly the bread was stale and the coffee cold. He never had been good at arguing with women; they tapped into pools of resentment over slights that had steeped for years.
She asked, “Do you have any idea how disrespectful that is? Do you have any idea how long it’s taken me to be accepted as a reporter? Or how humiliating it is to be ‘saved’ by a hero from the Prosecutor’s Office? And now you want me to turn down the most important article of my life?”
“I only meant that Tatiana’s notes might contain information that got her killed and it might be wise to let Victor and me go over them first.”
“Sergei gave me the notes on the condition that I share them with no one.”
“At least tell me, was there any mention of Grisha Grigorenko?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Or Kaliningrad?”
“Why Kaliningrad?”
“It just keeps popping up. I have no doubt that Sergei Obolensky is a great editor but there’s the possibility that he is also, let’s say, creative at the expense of his writers.”
Anya pushed herself away from the table. “I can take care of myself.”
“Like at the demonstration?”
“Maybe, but that’s my choice. It has nothing to do with you. You know, Arkady, if you wanted to be more involved in my life, you had your chance.”
That, Arkady thought, would silence any man.
• • •
The Cathedral of Christ the Redeemer was a copy of a church demolished by Stalin to make room for a statue of Lenin pointing to the future, only the statue was never erected and the Soviet future never arrived. The new cathedral was a white confection with golden onion domes. Grisha Grigorenko had contributed the cost of a dome and cashed in his investment with a funeral service fit for royalty.
Arkady preferred a smoky hole-in-the-wall sort of church with stooped priests whose beards touched the floor. Babushkas visited the chapels of their favorite saints, standing on tiptoe to kiss beloved books and icons. They bought thin candles for one, five or ten rubles depending on their length. Arkady thought if he lit a candle for everyone Grisha had wronged, the cathedral would burn down.
He could see why Maxim chose to meet at the cathedral; it was one of the few places that commanded a 360-degree view of the city. In other words, a person could see who was coming. Gypsies suckled babies at the door. Beggars demanded charity. Tourists were immobilized by their guidebooks while babushkas glided by on polishing rags wrapped around their feet. Icons of saints, prophets and apostles covered the walls, even the poorest in gold frames. Most of the figures offered a languid blessing and their flatness gave the impression of being inside a house of cards.
“Saint Pelagia. One of my favorite martyrs,” said Maxim. The poet nodded to the icon of a girl stoically on fire. “Martyred by being roasted in a bronze bull. Patron saint of chefs, or ought to be.”
“It sounds as if you know the saints intimately,” Arkady said.
“And sinners. I knew your father. What a son of a bitch he was.”
Arkady couldn’t disagree. His father had been an army officer who had never adjusted to peacetime. The last person Arkady wanted to talk about was his father.
Maxim moved along the wall. “Here is another favorite, Saint Phanourios. First beaten with stones, then stretched and flogged and put on the rack, crushed and burned with coals. Sounds like you.”
“I hope not.”
“You should take a good look at yourself sometime.”
Maxim himself deserved more than a glance. As a boy Arkady had devoured adventure stories set in the Wild West. That the authors had never been to America bothered him not in the least, and Maxim, with his narrow eyes, buckskin jacket and ponytail, had a wolfish charm. Two of the floor polishers stared at him and whispered behind their hands as if they were teenage girls.
“This is a little public,” Arkady said.
“Oh, nobody pays attention. They’re all in their own world, thinking deep religious thoughts. The church is a dead telephone; even though people know better, they pick it up and listen. Have you been listening?”
Arkady wondered whether Maxim was referring to the cassettes of Tatiana that he had been listening to late into the night, until Maxim added, “The acoustics of a church like this can carry whispers through the air.”
“That’s very poetic. What did you want to talk about?”
“Look at the murals here. All that swirling; Botticelli with a beach towel. I understand you were at Grisha Grigorenko’s funeral service.”
“Yes.”
“That was the same day as the rally for Tatiana Petrovna.”
“It was a busy day.”
“Where I rescued you, remember?”
“I remember and I thank you again.”
Chinese tourists streamed into the church and set off rounds of echoes. Men and women, they all had the same enthusiasm and all wore the same crushable hats.
“Have they located her body?” Maxim asked.
“Not that I know of.”
“Obolensky called and asked if I would write a poem about the police and the rally. Since I was there, perfectly placed. Serendipity, you could say.”
“For his magazine?”
“For a special Tatiana Petrovna issue of
“Who else did Obolensky tell?”
“No one. What do the notes say?”
“I don’t know.”
“But you saw them.”
“For a moment. And even if I knew, why would I tell you?”
“You owe me.”
“What possible interest can you have in Tatiana’s notes?”
“I’m interested in everything about Tatiana.”
“Why?”
“Because once upon a time I loved her.”
• • •
The ZIL was superannuated, but it had style. A silver chassis lashed with chrome, lots of chrome. Twin headlights that signified alertness, leather upholstery that offered comfort, tail fins that promised speed. A futuristic touch was a push-button transmission.
“They manufactured a total of ten ZILs in 1958. Of course, it swallows gas like a drunk, but a man who lets guilt ruin pleasure is the pincushion of fate. Go ahead, you drive.”
